Watch Samsung Unpacked 2026: Galaxy S26 reveal starts at 10am PT / 1pm ET

[midian182]

First look: It's that time of year again when Samsung unveils its latest Galaxy series handsets. In a few hours, the next Unpacked event will unveil the Galaxy S26 family along with the Galaxy Buds 4, and you can watch the whole thing right here at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm GMT.

Samsung is expected to reveal at least three phones in San Francisco today: the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+, and Galaxy S26 Ultra. It seems that reports the company dropped plans for a Galaxy S26 Edge (and likely any future Edge models) following weak S25 Edge sales may have been accurate – we'll find out for certain during the event.

As is always the case these days, the latest handsets are expected to offer iterative upgrades compared to their predecessors.

The base S26 model is rumored to pack a 6.3-inch screen – a 0.1-inch increase over the S25. The ultrawide camera could receive an upgraded 50MP sensor, and some leaks say the brightness has increased from 2,600 nits to 3,000 nits. The battery is also likely to be bigger: 4,300 mAh vs. 4,000 mAh.

Some reports suggest Samsung may drop 128GB and make 256GB the new base storage for the S26, which could mean a higher starting price. As for the design, the most notable small revision is an updated camera housing/bump style, according to renders.

The S26 Plus, meanwhile, is expected to keep its 6.7-inch QHD+ 120Hz display, though it may be brighter than its predecessor. Reports point to a 50MP main/10MP telephoto /12MP ultrawide camera setup, 12GB of RAM, and a 4,900 mAh battery.

Finally, there's the S26 Ultra. Samsung's 6.9-inch flagship could see its frame revert from titanium to aluminum. There's a 200MP/50MP/50MP/10MP camera setup, 5,000 mAh battery, and 12/16GB of RAM.

The S26 Ultra could have slightly raised cameras compared to the S25 Ultra. Reports say that to support Qi2 without a case, Samsung will remove the S Pen digitizer layer in the phone and use a new method for the stylus input. But the biggest change over its predecessor could be the confirmed built-in privacy shutter.

All three phones are expected to come with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, though some could use Samsung's Exynos 2600 in certain regions.

It's expected that Samsung will also reveal the Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro. They're believed to have smaller cases and less angular stems than the Buds 3, and come with support for head gestures to accept and decline calls.

Samsung's teaser for the event focuses on, you guessed it, AI. The company will doubtlessly go into detail about the updated, Perplexity-integrated Bixby assistant. Expect to hear plenty about Galaxy AI in general, too.

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Watch Samsung Unpacked 2026: Galaxy S26 reveal starts at 10am PT / 1pm ET

 

[polord]

Let me guess, a little bit better.
They must stop every year a “better” phone, save some earth resources..
But yeah, money….

 

[guillejp]

Get ready to be very underwhelmed.

They've been settling once and again on not pushing too much because they still reign supreme in sales in the Android world, but the market has been growing more and more bored of them for years, and by now they should have at least pushed with the battery size besides just the privacy screen gimmick. IMO, 5000 in a 6.9" flagship is downright unacceptable anymore.

 

[madboyv1]

I'm still rolling along with my Galaxy phone from 6 years ago so if I do end up getting an s26 of some flavor, it won't be a incremental/iterative upgrade for me. I am definitely hitting some performance and battery limitations that were not resolved after a new battery and later a device replacement, I am in the market. However there are some key features I'm looking to get so I can't wait to see how Samsung misses the mark for me and then decide what compromises I am willing to make.

I've come to terms with the loss of internal microSD, only took me half a decade lol.

 

[p51d007]

Not that I'm a fan of the phones coming out of China, due to their manufacturing/labor issues, but if some of these higher quality Chinese phones were in the global market and were allowed to work on all the bands that are available, perhaps the Samsung/Apple/Google (and a couple others) that dominate the western markets would put enough pressure on "the big three" to really innovate instead of coming up with minor updates.
Also (not sure how it works in the rest of the world) in the U.S. I'm sure there has to be some under the table money, to prevent a LOT of these foreign phones from being approved to work on the U.S. networks, along with the carriers who probably prefer to have LESS different manufacturers devices on their networks, due to less resources to make them work on their networks.
As for the spying problem, are people that naive to think that Samsung/Apple/Google/AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile/CIA/FBI/NSA etc, don't spy/use data?